


A Dissociated Existence

by Jupiter_Ash



Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: AU, Episode: s01e01 A Study in Pink, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-10-31
Updated: 2018-10-31
Packaged: 2019-08-11 14:24:55
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,811
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16477250
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Jupiter_Ash/pseuds/Jupiter_Ash
Summary: John comes back from Afghanistan detached and without connection to anything or anyone.  Then he meets Sherlock Holmes.





	A Dissociated Existence

**Author's Note:**

> Not a new story. Actually, a very old story, written on day 2 of NaNoWriMo 2010. Hunting around some old files recently I realised this was posted to my LJ but never brought over to here. So here it is. 
> 
> AU story based on A Study in Pink.

It wasn’t quite as he thought it would be. It hurt more for one. He heard a scream as the red hot bullet tore through his chest. Part of him registered that he had been shot while another part begged a deity he had never believed in to let him live.

Perhaps that was why….

Or perhaps there was no why.

All he knew was that after that nothing was ever quite the same.

*-*-*

He went back to London. It was agreed that that would be the best place for him. He didn’t want to argue and Afghanistan certainly did not hold anything for him. London was an easy choice, he simply had no where else to go.

He went to see Harry. That wasn’t fun. She was drunk; drunk and angry and spent most of the time he was there either shouting or crying. Neither were things he wanted to see, although he supposed he deserved the shouting. There was nothing he could say though. Certainly nothing that she would have heard and listened to anyway.

They provided someone for him to talk to. Apparently he wasn’t taking the transition very well. Well what did they expect? All his life he had been a doctor and a soldier. Now they had been taken away from him.

He rubbed his leg. It hurt. No one really believed him. Psychosomatic they told him. Maybe, he accepted, but that didn’t stop it hurting though, or stop his hand shaking. It also did not explain the ache in his chest or the loneliness that refused to release him. Then again there were other things that could explain that.

He didn’t sleep. He tried to but he simply kept returning to Afghanistan, to those last moments before his blood had started to drain out across the dry, biting sand. He sat on his bed instead, lowered his head and waited for the sun to rise. Things tended to look better in the sunlight.

He took to walking. He had nowhere to go, no one to meet, but it was good to simply be out there, to be part of the throng of life even if that wasn’t strictly true. Sometimes he would sit and watch as the world moved on around him, as children played and lovers met, as the cold winter sun rose and then set ready to rise again. It was the circle of life and somehow it brought him at least a little comfort.

He bumped into Mike in the park. He didn’t see him at first, didn’t even register that it had been his name that had been called. Then again why should he have? Who was he likely to bump into who would see and talk to him? Anyway, John was such a common name, the call could have been meant for anyone.

“Stamford, Mike Stamford,” the other man said holding out his hand.

His hand was cool but firm.

“We were at St Barts together.”

It all came flooding back then; the training, the long nights spent studying, the even longer nights spent out on the town. He wondered how he could have possibly have forgotten.

“I heard you were abroad somewhere getting shot at,” Mike said in that direct way of his. “What happened?”

_Watson! Incoming. Down. Down. Down!_

“I got shot.”

*-*-*

Turned out that Mike more than understood.

They sat on that bench and talked; about life, about time, about faulty gas stoves and other people’s wars. Mike asked about Harry but understood that he didn’t want to talk about her. He also understood the need to stay in London. London was all that he had left.

It was Mike’s idea in the end, to try and find somewhere he could at least call home, even temporarily. He had laughed of course and then absently flexed his hand before asking in complete honesty who would want to share anywhere with him.

It turned out, that however unlikely, Mike knew someone.

*-*-*

Sherlock Holmes was… well he just was. There simply were not enough words to describe him with. He was brilliant, surprising, shocking, arrogant, forthright, and simply bursting with energy, passion and life.

“Afghanistan or Iraq?” the man asked as if it was the most obvious question in the world. He had taken little more than a brief glance at him but could somehow read him like one would a book. It was disconcerting, especially as he had become used to people literally looking through him as if he wasn’t there.

“Sorry?” he said.

“Which was it, in Afghanistan or Iraq?”

“Afghanistan,” he said with a small cough. “Sorry, how did you know?”

That wasn’t the only question he wanted to ask but it was the most pressing at that moment.

The man merely smiled like he was the sole keeper of the secrets of life, the universe and everything. He knew in that instant that he would follow this Sherlock Holmes anywhere.

*-*-*

Anywhere started with a flat in Baker Street. 221B. It was warm and inviting in a way he had not felt in a long time.

The landlady, a Mrs Hudson, was surprisingly more than happy for the two of them to share the space, and actually seemed delighted to be introduced to him once Sherlock had released her from the hug. It had been a long time since someone had been delighted in him being somewhere.

“That’s a skull,” he said pointing to the object on the mantle piece.

Sherlock smiled in that way he did. “Friend of mine,” he said. “When I say friend….”

There was nothing more that was needed after that.

“There’s another bedroom upstairs, if you’ll be needing two bedrooms,” Mrs Hudson said not quite looking him in the face.

Of course he would be needing his own bedroom. Where else was he supposed to try and sleep, or perhaps not sleep?

Then just as he thought everything was settling into place, the police turned up.

“What’s new about this one? You wouldn’t have come to me if there wasn’t something different.”

“You know how they never leave notes?”

“Yeah.”

“This one did.”

He had never seen anyone so happy about four serial suicides, but then again, on top of everything else, the man also kept a skull on his mantle piece. Normality had no place around him.

The man returned up the stairs and looked at him critically. It was unsettling. No one had looked at him like that in a long time.

“You’re a doctor. In fact you’re an Army doctor.”

And then they were off. It was all a little mad really, but it made him feel things he never thought he would again.

*-*-*

Their conversation in the cab was surprisingly revealing, and considering what was said he did not blame the cabby for keeping completely to himself.

Sherlock finally told him who he was, what he did and what he could do. It was amazing, extraordinary, quite extraordinary, and he told Sherlock that, because it was true, so true and because it felt so good to actually have the chance to express himself to someone who actually listened.

The other man actually looked surprised, although that in itself was perhaps not that surprising, after all not everyone would appreciate his abilities.

The crime scene was… well… a crime scene.

The police and onlookers of course ignored him while going out of their way to poke fun at Sherlock. They called the other man a freak and yet he barely reacted, just smiled knowingly and walked on by.

The room smelt of death. It lingered in the air, hovered by the body of the woman in pink. He almost wished he had not agreed to come.

Almost.

He watched as Sherlock did his thing, as the Detective Inspector looked on awkwardly, clearly not comfortable with the situation. The arrogant forensics chap poked his head in to offer his suggestion which Sherlock bluntly rejected.

“Oh, for God’s sake,” the detective breathed once Sherlock had laid down the facts, “if you’re just making this up…”

Sherlock wasn’t making any of it up. She may have been silent but the pink lady had her own way of speaking, even in death.

Then Sherlock was gone with a flap of his black coat and the cry of “Pink!” following him.

*-*-*

It seemed as if he was the only one hearing the phone ring. As strange as it was, it was hardly the strangest thing that had ever happened to him.

“Get into the car, Doctor Watson. I would make some sort of threat, but I’m sure your situation is quite clear to you.”

He got in the car, but as much out of curiosity and a lack of any other plan as anything else.

“Hello.”

He hadn’t really been expecting a response so felt inspired when the pretty young lady looked up from her mobile long enough to glance in his direction and reply with a curt, “Hi.”

He took a chance and questioned her further.

“What’s your name, then?”

“Er… Anthea.”

“Is that your real name?”

“No.”

He tried not to laugh and wondered, as she returned to her mobile, if this was normal for her. He suspected that it was and despite everything he could not help but find that incredibly funny.

*-*-*

The figure in the warehouse looked as if he had stepped from a book, as if he belonged to another time and another place. He spoke with confidence and authority, and he knew more about him than he would have like, and yet he wasn’t scared. Perhaps he might have been in the past, but it would take far more than this to scare him now, but that still didn’t stop him flinching when the man reached for his hand.

It had been a reflex action, or at least that was what he had told himself. Other than the handshake with Mike it had been such a long time since he had felt someone else’s touch, even fleetingly, that he found himself instinctively backing away from it.

After that he could not get away from there fast enough.

*-*-*

He went back to Baker Street. It wasn’t as if he had anywhere else to go.

“What are you doing?” he asked.

Stretched out on the sofa Sherlock looked so pale and still he could almost have been dead.

“Nicotine patch. Helps me think. Impossible to sustain a smoking habit in London these days. Bad news for brain work.”

“It’s good news for breathing,” he said critically.

“Oh… breathing!” the other man dismissed casually as if he knew what he was talking about. “Breathing’s boring.”

He wasn’t sure what he could say to that.

*-*-*

They ended up sitting in an Italian eatery where Sherlock was well known and he was talked over or ignored. Considering everything none of this was surprising.

For the most part they sat and talked. Or at least he asked questions and Sherlock sometimes answered them. Some of the other diners kept shooting them very strange or confused looks, and he supposed they did look rather odd, but since Sherlock was obviously not bothered by it he had no interest in caring what other people thought.

They broached a number of subjects about matters as varied as their work and experiences, as life and death, and even vaguely about relationships.

“You don’t have a girlfriend, then.” Although he was struggling to envision what sort of girl would fit into this life style.

“Girlfriend? No, not really my area.”

“Mm. Oh, right.” Not surprising really. “Do you have a… boyfriend? Which is fine, by the way.”

It was fine, it was all fine, was the point he was trying to make, and the point they both managed to eventually settle on.

He realised afterwards, that that conversation was the longest he had had in a long time and it had felt so good, so normal. There were a lot of things that he missed from his life before, interaction and companionship turned out to be one of them.

*-*-*

The food went uneaten and he winced as Sherlock was almost run down by a car. Then the chase was on and for the first time in months he felt giddy with excitement, with the feel of air pressing against his face. He felt like he hadn’t felt in such a long time. He almost felt alive again.

*-*-*

“That was ridiculous. That was the most ridiculous thing… I’ve ever done.”

He was laughing. He was laughing in a way he had completely forgotten how to do.

“And you invaded Afghanistan.”

The laughter building up within him completely blocked the memory of the screams and the blood and the pain.

“That wasn’t just me,” he said and for the first time he realised that his leg no longer hurt, that his hand no longer shook, and that he had finally found somewhere where he could belong.

“Mrs Hudson! Doctor Watson _will_ take the room upstairs.”

He was still breathing too deeply and giggling too much to even think about objecting.

*-*-*

“If you were dying… If you’d been murdered, in your very last few seconds what would you say?”

Sherlock looked at him, stared directly at him, ignoring everyone else in the room.

_Watson! Incoming._

“‘Please, God, let me live.’”

_Down. Down. Down!_

“Use your imagination!”

Pain, sand, screaming.

“I don’t have to.”

*-*-*

He followed Sherlock to the Roland-Kerr Further Education College. He wasn’t sure how, or why, he just did and something told him to take the building on the right, not the one on the left.

Turned out taking the one of the right was the thing that made all the difference.

*-*-*

“You were going to take that damn pill, weren’t you?”

The cabbie was in custody, the case was closed.

“Course I wasn’t. Biding my time. Knew you’d turn up.”

“No, you didn’t.”

He looked closely at the other man, at his pale almost waxy skin, his prominent cheekbones and thought back to everything he had seen, everything he had heard.

“That’s how you get your kicks, isn’t it?”

The other man looked at him sharply.

“You risk your life to prove you’re clever. No, not just that, to prove that you’re alive. You spend so much of your life around the dead that sometimes you forget.”

The other man smiled. “Perhaps that’s what I need you for, to remind me.”

They walked on until the door of a familiar black car opened.

“Sherlock… That’s him, that’s the man I was talking to you about.”

And then in a matter of minutes everything finally slotted into place.

“He’s not really your brother, is he?” he said as they walked away.

“No, although he’s the closest I’ve got. I was named for his brother. Technically he’s my great grand uncle. He haunted the old family home where I grew up.”

“And you saw him and talked to him.”

“Naturally.”

“You started young then.”

They walked on.

“How did he die?”

“Poisoned. Political assassination. Christmas 1895.”

“And Anthea?”

“Who?”

“His assistant.”

“Oh, moderate psychic, can hear but not see. I helped bring them together.”

He stopped. Sherlock stopped with him. It was a strange feeling, knowing that there was someone out there, someone flesh and blood who could both see and react to him.

“But you can see,” he said slowly. “You can see me.”

“Obviously,” Sherlock said with a raised eyebrow. “I wouldn’t be much of a Psychic Consulting Detective if I couldn’t see the dead.”

“So you know how I died.”

The pale grey green eyes flickered over his upper body.

“Shot in the chest and shoulder. Left shoulder I would guess. Bullet grazed your heart and pierced your lung. You were dead within half a minute.

_Watson! Incoming. Down. Down. Down!_

_Dear God, please let me live._

_Screaming. Sand. Pain._

And then nothing.

He closed his eyes.

“It hurt,” he said.

Sherlock said nothing. What could he say? He just saw dead people, he actually hadn’t died. Not yet at least.

“Why am I still here?” he said finally after the silence.

The man just smiled slightly and shrugged. “Why are any of us here?”

It wasn’t an answer, although it sounded as if it at least should have been one. He had been alive for thirty-four and a half years, and had been dead for five months, two weeks and three days, and in all that time no-one had offered him a better answer. Now he supposed no one ever would.

“Well,” he said pragmatically, “I guess I’ll be sticking around then. It’s not as if I have anywhere else to go and you look as if you need reminding to stay alive.”

They went for Chinese. His fortune cookie said ‘depart not from the path which fate has assigned you’.

He couldn’t argue with that.


End file.
